


The Other Kind of Ring

by ekbelfield



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Wrestling, F/M, First Meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 07:52:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4779596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekbelfield/pseuds/ekbelfield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The inevitable Oliver Queen as a wrestler AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Kind of Ring

**Author's Note:**

> Has someone else already done this? I feel like something like this should exist already. Some visual inspiration here: http://ekbfield.tumblr.com/tagged/amell-vs-stardust
> 
> This is the longest thing I've ever written, and also the most AU thing I've ever written.

Oliver Queen and his manager walked down a narrow corridor in the underbelly of the latest stadium they were in (with as long as Oliver had been a professional wrestler, they all started to blend together). Tommy Merlyn was a shark, and he was also Oliver’s best friend, making the pair very popular with wrestling fans. Oliver always made time for the kids, and had a six pack and thighs the women adored, so Oliver carved out a niche of being a good guy and a great wrestler, which Tommy was only too happy to promote. 

On this night, Oliver was to wrestle someone he had never worked with before, and the pre-match jitters were coursing through his veins. Tommy kept up with his brisk, nervous pace, reminding him that there was a reason so many paid to see him wrestle.

“I don’t know what you are so nervous about, man. It’s not like you don’t know how this is going to go. You’re going to get the belt! Be the champ! Just like you always wanted. Just like we always wanted.” Tommy gave him a slap on the back, as a short blonde backed around a corner and into view. “Oh, hey man, I know what will get your mind off of things, come meet the new ringside talent.”

Tommy pulled Oliver towards the petite woman, and as they drew close Oliver could see that she fit the typical profile for the ringside talent: blonde, small, delicate, but with an ass for days. Oliver rolled his eyes at Tommy’s antics, constantly trying to set him up with whatever attractive women he could get his eyes on, but those days were long past for Oliver. Once he made it as a wrestler he vowed to set a good example for his young fans, and his mother was happy he traded in the flavor-of-the-week for a serious career in the family business. Indulging Tommy, Oliver let himself be pulled in her direction.

She turned around, and Oliver took in her round blue eyes behind cute glasses and her lips. Her bright pink, gorgeous lips. She may have looked like a typical wrestling beauty from behind, but from the front he could see there was nothing typical about her. And then she opened her mouth.

“Tommy! Hi! And you must be Mr. Queen. I’m Felicity. Felicity Smoak.” She said as she extended a hand for a shake.

“Please, call me Oliver. Mr. Queen was my father.” He had to look down to take in her expression and was struck by how tiny she seemed.

“Right, but he retired. Because he was injured. Which you did not need to be reminded of. Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I’m sure you’re not down here to listen to me babble. Which will end in 3. 2. 1.” She said all of this in one breath, and Oliver couldn’t help but chuckle. The sound was foreign in his ears, and that made him realize how long it had been since something had made him laugh. Tommy’s shock was also expressed on his features, eyebrows raised as he looked back and forth between the two of them.  
“It’s good to see you Felicity.” Tommy said slowly, still taking in the expression on Oliver’s face. “Tonight your first night?”

“Oh, yes. I never would have gotten the job without Laurel’s help, please thank her for me.” Felicity smiled and Oliver thought she was unfairly beautiful. He opened his mouth to say something to her, but no sound came out. Felicity looked at him expectantly, and Oliver could only half sigh, half laugh, and try again.

“Are you announcing for my match tonight?” Oliver wished he could think of something less mundane to ask her, but with his pre-match nervousness his brain was already somewhere else, and the appearance of literal sunshine in the sterile corridor of the arena threw him off.

“Yes, you and Mr. Rhodes. Though, I have to admit, you are much less intimidating than him.” Oliver made a face at that, and Felicity caught herself. “I don’t mean in the ring! Oh god. I just meant, he’s so intense, and you seem so… personable. I half expected him to go all grrr on me when we were introduced.” She made claws with her hands as she said this and Oliver couldn’t help the fully bloomed laugh that left his lips. Tommy snorted, and Oliver realized he’d forgotten about his friend until that moment.

“Well, I should probably get going, I have to get changed.” Oliver gestured vaguely down the corridor, and Felicity nodded enthusiastically. “I love your costume. It makes your thighs look so strong.” There was a wistful expression on her face, until she realized what she said and snapped out of it. “Oh god. Forget I said that. Good luck tonight!” And she continued down the corridor, seeming to want to get away before she could say anything to embarrass herself further.

Tommy, looking after her with an expression on his face that could only be described as “cat that ate the canary,” clapped Oliver on the back as he ushered him towards the locker room. “Oh, this is going to be so good.”

***

Oliver broke from his normal pre-match routine to watch the earlier card on the monitor in his area of the locker room. Normally he’d be stretching, or mentally reviewing the fight choreography, but he couldn’t focus until he saw how Felicity did on the ringside. He had to know if she was as charming announcing the matches, as she was when he met her earlier.

He was not disappointed. Within two matches she had the crowd eating out of her hand. She was a natural. He was so engrossed he didn’t even notice Tommy approaching him.

“She’s really something else, isn’t she?” Oliver didn’t reply, not wanting to fuel Tommy’s endless matchmaking schemes. Having seen her holding her own, Oliver began to focus on his own match, and the opponent he’d be facing for the first time tonight, Cody Rhodes. 

Rhodes was known more for his antics than his tactics, and that was how this match had arisen. Rhodes had attempted to start something with Tommy over Laurel (per the scripts, of course), so now it was Oliver’s job to defend Tommy against him. Felicity was right about Rhodes being intense; in fact, Oliver didn’t think he’d ever seen him out of character. Oliver reviewed the choreography one last time, before heading to the holding area waiting for his turn to enter the ring. Tommy gave him one last word of encouragement (“Remember, you’re gonna get the belt!”) before his intro music started and he started hopping in place, getting himself pumped.

Felicity’s voice, amplified for the whole arena to hear, was calling his name. “And now, our main event. Please welcome the Arrow, the Emerald Archer, your challenger for the belt, Oliver Queen!” Oliver began his jog out to the ring, trying not to be distracted by the sound of Felicity’s voice saying, no, caressing, his name. He felt Tommy slip into his manager role as he followed Oliver to the ring and took his place on the side, a few steps away from Felicity. Oliver jumped into the ring and waved to the crowd. He couldn’t quite resist the urge to look towards Felicity, and the sight of her smiling up at him stole his breath. He could feel the camera catching his movements and shook himself, hoping the camera didn’t catch the sappy look on his face, before turning back towards the ring. In his peripheral vision, he could see, he could almost feel, the smirk radiating off of Tommy.

Oliver didn’t have time to dwell on this, however, because the music changed, and Felicity’s voice once again filled the arena. “Alright Vancouver, the defending champion, legitimacy notwithstanding, the one, the only, Stardust!” The crowd roared at Felicity’s jab at the villain, and rained down boos as Stardust entered the arena. 

Oliver knew that from this point forward, Felicity was in the dark about what would happen in the match. They tried to keep the choreography and outcomes a secret from the ringside announcers so their commentary would appear more authentic. Oliver didn’t think this would be a problem for Felicity, based on the little that he’d seen, but was also secretly excited for her to hold his hand up in victory after the match, knowing it’d be a surprise for her. He felt his mind wandering to how her small hand would feel in his large one, and barely noticed the refs pushing them to their respective corners. Tommy’s yell of “Oliver, get in the game!” got him to shake out of it and get ready to carry out the choreography.

***

Something was wrong. Oliver could feel blood spewing out of his nose after the last knee to the face he was supposed to dodge. Way more blood than there should have been. He tried to give the signal to the ref that he needed to stop the match, but Stardust, in character and intense, wasn’t backing off. Oliver’s vision was starting to swim when he caught sight of a flash of blonde in front of him. Felicity’s voice, sounding close to his ears, but also amplified by the body mic she was wearing, was clear and sharp as she hissed at Stardust.

“Get away from him!” Stardust, shocked, backed up a few steps (Finally, Oliver thought) and Felicity took the opportunity to throw herself between Oliver and Stardust. Oliver was vaguely aware of the crowd roaring as she asserted herself against the heel that stole the belt. Once she was certain Stardust had retreated to his corner, Felicity turned to him, hands hovering over his face.

“Oliver, Oliver, are you alright?” The sight of her face so close to his, with such concern, made his heart swell. He grabbed her hands and held them, oblivious to the blood on them, and tried to assuage her.

“Felicity, I’m okay. I have to finish the match.”

“No! You need to see a doctor.”

“After the match. Let me get the pin. Then I promise I’ll see as many doctors as you want.” The crowd awwed, and that was when Oliver realized their conversation was being picked up by her body mic, and broadcast to the crowd. His experience as a pro-wrestler kicked in, and he hoped Felicity would roll with it. “You have a job to do. So do I. But I promise I’ll come home in one piece.” The crowd started cat calling and Oliver knew he made the right call, but Felicity’s face still held uncertainty. He squeezed her hands, silently pleading.

“Okay, okay. Pin that asshole.” The crowd cheered, and Oliver sagged with relief that she seemed okay with his adlib. “Then I’ll help clean your wounds myself.” Oliver chuckled, shocked, as the crowd started chanting Felicity’s name. That seemed to snap Felicity back into business mode. She grabbed a towel from Tommy and used it to mop up some of the blood that had soaked Oliver’s face, before using Tommy’s offered hand to help herself back out of the ring. She tossed the bloodied towel to the side and took a deep breath to continue announcing as Oliver gave the signal to continue the match.

The remainder of the match was short lived, the crowd had gotten their money’s worth at that point, and a scant five minutes later Stardust was pinned and Oliver had won the belt. Felicity leapt into the ring and threw her arms around Oliver’s neck, heedless of the blood all over his front. Oliver cleared his throat, reminding Felicity she still had a job to do. She grinned sheepishly before stepping back. She gripped his hand in hers, both covered in his blood, and Oliver had never felt more alive.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, your new champion, Oliver Queen!”

***

After the match, Felicity had to conduct some post match interviews, but she knew her head wasn’t in the game as she was anxious to see Oliver and make sure he was really okay. She had just met him that night, and she already felt a connection between them, as silly as it might have sounded. She thought his adlib was genius, to cover her complete break of character, and she wanted to thank him for it (and maybe also find out if his adlib meant he felt their connection as well). As soon as she was able, she raced towards the trainer’s office to find Oliver.

The sight that greeted her made her jaw drop. Now that the blood had been cleaned up, she could see that Oliver’s nose had clearly been broken. She walked up to him and grabbed his hand and he tried to smile, but it turned into a wince when his facial muscles moved.

“I guess the adrenaline is wearing off.” He sounded a bit more nasally than he had before, and she started rubbing her hand up and down his arm.

“What’s the prognosis?”

“Broken nose. They’ll set it and I’ll be ready to go in a couple of weeks.”

“I guess Stardust will have to wait for his rematch.” Oliver looked at her sharply, well, as sharply as he could from behind his swollen features.

“What?” Oliver had come straight to the trainer after he left the stage, so he had no idea about any of the post-match fallout.

“Oh, yeah. He wants a rematch. He’s pissed I interfered. Which, maybe I wasn’t supposed to, but frankly I don’t care. He wasn’t stopping! He’s clearly a little unhinged and…” Oliver squeezed her hands to stop her babble before she could really take off and Felicity counted down again, whispered, as her forehead fell into his chest. His bare chest. Felicity groaned but didn’t move.

“Felicity.” The way his mouth wrapped around the syllables of her name was nothing short of lyrical. “Thank you. I’m glad you got involved. Next time though, stay out of the ring if you can help it. I want you safe.” He punctuated his statement with a kiss to her forehead and she snuggled closer. Neither of them noticed the camera in the corner capturing the whole exchange.

***

The following week they travelled to New York. During that time, Oliver tried to spend as much time with Felicity as possible. It wasn’t hard to do; with all the travel the pro-wrestlers did they were often in close quarters. The more he got to know her, the more he realized that he maybe wanted to date her for real. Tommy had told him that the story writers were really excited about the chemistry between Oliver and Felicity, and while Oliver was always going to be okay with working more alongside the bubbly blonde, he wasn’t sure how she would feel about starting a relationship with someone she would be working so closely with. Tommy told him to go for it, but it was easy for him to say, seeing as he’d been in a steady relationship with Laurel for as long as either of them could remember.

The entire flight from Vancouver to New York, he hemmed and hawed over whether or not to ask her out. They were seated next to each other, but flying made her nervous so she had taken a sleeping pill and passed out on his shoulder. Her blonde hair tickling his arm made it hard for him to focus on his dilemma. As the plane descended into JFK, he was no closer to deciding what to do. Tommy was across the aisle, and snickered at him as he put his tray back up. “You’ve got time, Oliver.” He whispered, as to not wake Felicity. “Don’t rush it.”

Oliver took Tommy’s advice to heart, and decided to wait a few days before acting on his growing affection for Felicity. This seemed like a great plan, until the fight card the following Monday. Oliver couldn’t fight, because of his broken nose, but he was there to antagonize Stardust and support Felicity. The card was going well, until Felicity and Oliver were side-by-side during a short break while they aired pre-taped footage. They both tensed at the sound of their own voices, and Oliver realized they were playing footage from the trainer’s room for the whole arena to see.

Watching the exchange back, Oliver realized that his conversation with Felicity was the most intimate conversation he had had with someone in a long time, maybe ever. Felicity’s eyes flicked back and forth between the screen and him, uncertainty and a little anger on her features.

“Did you know they were filming us?” She hissed, aware of the body mic she was still wearing.

“No, I didn’t. I swear, Felicity, I had no idea.” His desperation caused her to soften until she caught sight of Tommy behind him and the anger returned anew. She pointed at him, aggressively, and the look on Tommy’s face gave away that he was the one who sold them out. Oliver blinked, shocked, before he took in Felicity’s state. He reached for her one pointed finger and grasped it in his hand while he turned her chin to look at him.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. You can use your loud voice on him later. Right now, you’re wearing a mic that can go hot at any time, okay? And I want you to keep your job because I really like you.” Felicity’s eyes went wide as he said that, until a smile slowly graced her figures, as though the sun was rising over her anger.

“You do?” She asked, uncertain but hopeful. “You as in, you Oliver, and not the wrestler Oliver?”

“I do. Me.” He took a breath before continuing. “I was debating whether or not to do anything about it. I don’t want to debate anymore. I want to be with you.” Felicity squealed and crashed their mouths together, not really being mindful of his still sensitive face. He winced but persevered, because now he knew what it felt like to kiss Felicity Smoak, and he knew it would be worth a little pain, always.

The pre-taped footage ended, and they heard the crowd catcalling, and that’s what made them realize a camera had found them kissing. She squealed as she pulled away, playfully slapping him, before returning to the ringside to call the next match. Oliver couldn’t wipe the grin off his face as he joined Tommy in the spectator stand.

***

Oliver and Felicity became quite the duo in the world of pro-wrestling. Tommy pushed for storylines that included them working together, and Felicity even got to throw in with some of the other ringside talent from time to time. Oliver was always there to defend her when she needed it, but he quickly realized she could hold her own, and soon evolved from protector to cheerleader. They were wrestling’s new power couple, both in the ring and out, and while sometimes it was difficult to separate their characters from their real life personas, Oliver was eager to make both arrangements permanent.

Two years after they met, when the wrestling tour returned to Vancouver, Oliver knew the time was right. At the end of the night, after he defended the belt sans broken nose, when Felicity clambered into the ring to announce his victory, he stopped her. Tommy handed him a microphone, and he turned to face Felicity, who was looking adorably confused.

“Felicity and I met two years ago, tonight. She dove between me and Stardust, and I fell a little bit in love as she stood up to that villain.” The crowd cheered, and started chanting Felicity’s name, making her smile. “Over the last two years I’ve fallen a little bit more in love every day, and I can’t imagine a life without her. Last year, when she told me I had to fight not to not die, but to live, I knew, in my heart, that I was fighting to live for her.” Her eyes welled up in tears, and Oliver got down on one knee, pulling a ring from the waistband of his costume. “Felicity. I love you. Will you marry me?”

Felicity sobbed as she took the ring and nodded, tears streaming down her face. The crowd roared, but Oliver noted she wasn’t smiling. He pulled her into a hug, and felt her sob into his chest as she shakily put on the ring. He lead her out of the ring to the crowd chanting for Olicity, a portmanteau that Oliver would never admit how much he loved. He was eager to show her affection in private, so he was shocked when as soon as they were in the holding area she pulled off the ring and threw it. Oliver watched, stunned, as the ring skittered down the corridor, and Felicity shoved him in the chest.

“I cannot believe” she hissed “that you let your character propose to me before you did! Did Tommy put you up to this?” She stalked off down the corridor with Oliver staring after her. He snapped out of it before she took more than three steps and in two long strides he’d caught up with her.

“Felicity” he said softly, so soft, and he could sense Felicity’s anger wavering “Felicity, that was me proposing.”

“Was it? Because that quote was said in the ring after a match six months ago!”

Oliver took a deep breath, reaching for her hands. “You saved me in every way. I was ready to quit before you came along. I was going to tell Tommy to have the writers find a way to write me out the night after that match. But then I met you. You made me laugh for the first time in a long time. And everything about this life got a little bit sunnier.” Her watery eyes gazed up into his, a guarded expression on her face. Sensing that a lot rode on his next words, he chose them carefully. “I proposed here, tonight, because the moment you intervened, without knowing if you should, without knowing if it would cost you your job, was the moment that I went from curiously attracted to head over heels. I love you. I want a family with you. I want everything with you. I thought you knew. I thought you knew that Oliver Queen the wrestler always became Oliver Queen the man the second the match was over. I’m sorry if you didn’t know. But please, know that every post match kiss, every caress, camera or no camera, that was all me, and all for you.” 

Felicity was crying in earnest now, but she was wearing the widest smile he’d ever seen as she threw her arms around his neck. He picked her up and carried her down the corridor until he spotted the glint of the ring. He set her down, and bent to retrieve the ring, before slipping it back on her finger, where it belonged. A laugh bubbled out through her tears, and she placed both hands on his face. “I love you, too. God, so much. I couldn’t bear the thought of you saying those beautiful words and having them not be real.”

“Oh, they are real.” He punctuated his words with kisses. “So real.”

She kissed him back, smile meeting smile. She pulled back with a serious expression on her face.

“If you think we’re getting married in a wrestling ring, you’re out of your mind, I don’t care what Tommy says.”

A familiar voice from around the corner yelled “I heard that!” causing both of them to laugh as they headed towards the locker room.

***

On their wedding day, Oliver wore his wrestling costume under his tux. Because he knew how much Felicity loved that it accentuated his strong thighs.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell the direction of this was influenced by recent Arrow promos? Whoops. #sorrynotsorry


End file.
